The global market has experienced a lot of competition in the recent past from rival companies of each service produced. The market has turned from being monopolistic to perfect competition market. One such example is the market of carbonated soft drinks simply referred to as soda.
There are various companies producing soft drinks including brands like the Coca-Cola, Pepsi and Schweppes. Of the aforementioned three brands, Coca-Cola is one of the oldest existing companies established in 1944 in the United States. In terms of market penetration, Coca-Cola has managed to distribute its products to over 200 countries round the globe (Mikkelson and Mikkelson, 2001, p.1).
The dominance that Coca-Cola has globally is attributable to a businessperson by the name Griggs Candler, who after purchasing the company initiated strong marketing tactics that led to its success. In order to perfectly venture into the market, Coca-Cola produces new brands of its soft drink including diet coke, caffeine-free Coca-Cola and Coca-Cola vanilla just to mention a few.
In addition to this, the company distributes soda fountain concentrates to food service distributors as well as restaurant who prepare the drink at first hand to the customers. In addition to this, the packaging materials used by Coca-Cola are attractive and durable thus attracting more customers. In short, the marketing strategy of Coca-Cola Company is one of the best leading to its dominance in the global market.
Pepsi-Cola is another company that specializes in producing soft drinks. The rivalry between Pepsi cola and Coca-Cola reached the top in the 1970s leading to the ‘cola wars’ (Louis and Harvey, 1980). In this, the Pepsi company came up with faulty results from tests they had conducted to suggest that consumers preferred their products to those of Coca-Cola.
These are some of the marketing strategies that Pepsi has used over the years in a bid to conquer the market. Pepsi had a slogan that played on radio and the television to attract consumers to their products. In addition to this, the Pepsi Company made use of the services of an artist by the name Polly Bergen in order to promote its products.
The most recent marketing strategy by Pepsi is that of re-designing their company logo. The logo together with the production of new brands of drinks such as the regular, diet and Pepsi max have been a breakthrough in the market penetration of Pepsi drinks.
Schweppes is another of the soft drinks brand produced by different companies depending on the location. This company has specialised in the production of carbonated water and ginger ales, making it different from the other two companies discussed above. The most common marketing strategy that the company has used is derived from the sound of gas that is normally produced in the process of opening the tin bottle.
Therefore, most of their commercials on the television and radio use onomatopoeia of “Schhhhh…..Schweppes” which has helped in market penetration of their brands. In fact, the packaging used by Schweppes has greatly contributed to the success of the brand, as people prefer the tin cans to the glass bottles mostly used by other companies.
From the above discussion, it is clear that the marketing strategy that a company chooses is the determining factor of it success (Kotler and Keller, 2009). The three companies discussed above, have different marketing strategies that they use to venture into the market and retain their customers.
Reference List
Kotler, P., and Keller, K. (2009). Marketing management (13th ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
Louis, J. and Harvey, Z. (1980). The Cola Wars. Everest House, Publishers, New York, NY, USA.
Mikkelson, B, and Mikkelson D. (2001). The Claus That Refreshes. snopes.com. Retrieved from https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/the-claus-that-refreshes/